Objective
Work from Home Policy(WFH) is the condition in which employee has to execute his/her task from home due to office closure, movement restrictions imposed due to state declared bandh/strike/lockdown or natural disasters like epidemic, calamities, or such Act of God.
Purpose of the policy is to define the conditions to be fulfilled under company’s work from home procedures.
Eligibility & Coverage
- This policy shall be applicable to all the employees of VNR Seeds and group concerns across all locations.
- The employee will become eligible only if the WFH is approved or the circumstances mandates the working from home on instruction from manager and is based on approval by HR.
- The WFH condition cannot be demanded or requested by the employees on their own.
Category of WFH
- The WFH jobs can be categorised based on the nature of the job.
- Jobs Fully Suitable for WFH: Involve mostly table-chair based office jobs that can be executed from home. Leadership or managerial level jobs that involves mostly planning, coordination and directing maybe executed by WFH.
- Jobs Partially Suitable for WFH: Involve jobs that cannot be fully executed from home. Usage of technology and e-marketing practices have made WFH possible to an extent but partial presence at field may be required. The extent of field presence may vary based on the hierarchy of job or nature of job.
- Jobs not suitable for WFH: Involve jobs at processing unit or laboratory to be executed only from respective work-location or jobs that need full time presence on field.
Procedure & Guideline
- For deciding whether the job can be executed as WFH, the jobs should be assessed for its suitability for WFH. The following assessment should be done;
- Degree of face-to-face interaction needed with colleagues
- Frequency of office documentation to be referred
- Types of resources or tools availability like internet connectivity, desktops, software, email system, server access, printer etc.
- The WFH facility approval will also depend on the assessment of the employee’s nature of being able to work sincerely during the given work timings, being able to arrange apt working conditions at home for minimum disturbance, being self-disciplined for ensuring his/her full availability during the working hours and should have good time management skills.
- The processes to be followed during WFH are as given;
- Availability of properly lit-up and airy space as working unit with minimum disturbance from other family members, preferably a separate room to be used during the complete office working hours.
- A proper sitting setup to ensure that long hours can be maintained without feeling uncomfortable.
- Telephonic or Internet connectivity to connect with manager/colleagues / external parties as per work.
- A detailed report of task completion on daily basis to reporting manager/ HOD, provided in form of mail, message, or scanned image.
- WFH mandates that there should be agreed arrangements for the immediate line manager and the employee to review progress jointly at appropriate intervals. The managers can take help of the online meeting tools for the same.
- The managers should do continuous performance tracking and monitoring during the period of WFH of their team member. The performance assessment will depend on what is provided as an input and what level of output is delivered within the agreed parameters.
- No differential treatment shall be given to the employee in this condition and the employee is expected to fulfill all the tasks as instructed by the reporting manager and reporting manager in turn is expected to instruct, train and handhold in similar way through e-tools.
- Proper orientation should be provided by the manager for the employee to get adjusted to the new routine of WFH. Proper discipline is needed to be maintained at both ends to ensure that the working hours at home doesn’t stretch too much beyond the office hours.
- The approval for request based WFH can be withdrawn at any time by the employer with or without reason being given to the employee.
- At any event if it is found that the employee is not responding as required over mails or calls then it shall become a matter of disciplinary action.
Data Access & Security
- IT helpdesk support should be sought from IT department to initiate the assistance for WFH by the reporting manager to ensure proper data security and regular data access.
- The employee required to access the office files from servers should mandatorily work through VPN access ID generated for him/her.
- The daily server log-in time and log-out time should be as per the office timings.
- All the working files should be stored on the server directly and no copies should be saved in personal desktop/laptop.
- The responsibility of the security of the data accessed from home, shall be with the employee. He/she will be responsible to ensure data security.
- Any breach in data while WFH will be a punishable act and strict disciplinary action shall be initiated against the employee, leading even to termination if purposeful data breach is established.
About Attendance
- If the stated conditions for WFH is not met the employee shall be treated as ‘not working’ and will be marked ‘Absent’ from work.
- The employee shall be marked as absent or on leave for non-compliant days and serious disciplinary action can be initiated if the negligent behavior as stated is repeated.
- Not updating the manager about work done through daily report
- Unsatisfactory work has been done
- Not answering official phone calls
- Not attending online meetings
- Indications of negligent working
- Not attending external meeting with vendor/customer as per prior intimation
- Weekly Work reports should be submitted on WFH for assessment of productivity and performance by Reporting manager/HOD.
- Any employee while being on WFH should sincerely apply for leave when he/she is unable to join work due to health conditions or some other personal commitments based on approval from manager.